We recently connected with Kristin Laine and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kristin, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

Profits over People. In 2022 you would think we know better, and can operate from a People First perspective. My profits are only as strong and fulfilling as my relationships with clients, partners, colleagues, and others I serve in this industry. When People feel taken care of, heard, understood – whatever their emotional language is – they experience a better value.

I recently took over management of a commercial property. The group I work for bought it from an REIT Portfolio that was managing in a very corporate way. The REIT couldn’t get the property leased, their Portfolio had strict guidelines that only chain restaurants could lease the property. They thought the value was in the security of a long term, franchise backed lease. When our clients purchased, they said we don’t care who leases, as long as they qualify. We immediately had interest, and a local bar and music venue opened, within 6 months of purchase, the group was experience profits from their purchase. More than the profits, as the manager, I get to have this relationship with a local musician and business owner. I’ve been able to relate personally with the tenant, we’ve experienced ups and downs of business in a pandemic together. We are able to provide value to each other in a way that I don’t get with corporate chain leases.

Kristin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started in Real Estate in 2005, as a sales assistant for a new construction sales team. By 2006 I had my license and was part of the sales team. I worked in new construction during the housing boom, and found myself pretty down when the Great Recession happened. By 2009 I picked up part time work outside of the Real Estate industry, as many did. That lasted a year, and I knew I had to get back to Real Estate full time, by any means. In 2010, while the market was still duct taping itself back together, I crawled back into Real Estate and began toying with the idea of investing and developing.

I developed and sold my first HPR and put the profits towards purchasing and renovating distressed properties. Within the year, I had four small rentals leased, just outside Nashville. As the market came back, I turned profits and equity into further investments. By this point I had a taste of caring for tenants, and enjoying the results of these relationships. I experienced tenants that felt seen and heard, paid on time, and kept open lines of communication with landlords. I’ve since applied the same relationship skills to connecting other property owners and tenants, as a property manager. Branching out started small, with family and friends that wanted to be hands off property owners – and it’s grown into a much larger business than I could have thought possible.

Since 2017 I’ve gotten into more Commercial spaces, Short Term Rentals (airbnbs), we’ve opened a maintenance department and have our own in house cleaning service. I attribute all of the growth, to valuable relationship skills. Instead of strict boundaries about what kind of people or business we will serve, I have strong suggestions how we treat the people we come into contact with, and how we (do or don’t) let them treat us. I also strive for an emotionally healthy work environment for employees and contractors. We work as a team to create the valuable experience.

I believe over time, our kindness and anti-corporate behavior has helped us set high expectations and go beyond those expectations for the people we work with. It has become obvious to me and those within the company that if our minds and hearts are right, our work is better.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

March 2020! Didn’t we all have a major pivot then? March 1, 2020 we transitioned from 3 short term rentals to 20 short term rentals, officially hired our second employee, signed a lease for a larger office to begin April 1, and I was 7 months pregnant. Yikes, that’s a pivot everywhere. March 2nd I was in Costco setting up the new employee to buy toilet paper, paper towels, soaps, etc for our Airbnbs. By the middle of the night an EF3 tornado cleared a path down 40 and we were in communication with tenants, non-local property owners, and airbnb guests the next twenty four hours assessing well-being and damage.

We spent 10 days assuring hundreds of future short term rental guests that Nashville was “Still Open” after tornadoes, until it wasn’t. Before “it’s just a couple weeks” of shelter-in-place ran it’s course, my son was born. Small Business loans were becoming a buzzword and I jumped on it. From the hospital bed. While we waited out my son’s 5 day NICU stay, quarantined to a hospital room, I began to pivot. It started with a PPP loan to continue paying employees. I canceled our bigger office lease, and turned more than half of our Airbnbs into long term housing for students and nurses.

During the summer of 2020 we created countless creative payment plans for tenants experiencing their own pivots. We let some leases go without consequence for those suffering other consequences of the pandemic. I remember being very hard on myself during this time, I am sure I was experiencing some PPT and didn’t realize at the time. The hardest transition for me came around September, I risked putting a 5 month old in day care during a pandemic in order to pick up the scraps of my business and piece together something.

In 2010 when I returned to Real Estate full time from the Great Recession, I had adapted the internal mantra of “Never Again.” I wanted to provide a service, a business, and an experience no matter the outside circumstances. I dug down into that old mantra again and decided a pandemic wouldn’t slow down our fledgeling little Boxwood. I told my tiny team at the time we were going to double in size in the next year. Twice as many clients, twice as many properties, twice as many employees. By fall 2021 I said keep going, let’s double again. We currently have 6 salaried full time employees, 4 part-timers, with a slew of Real Estate agents, and contractors keeping our cleaning and maintenance department’s thriving. We started promoting the heck out of our Property Management skills, bringing on over 80 separate properties to manage. When the housing market went nuts, I brought on more Real Estate agents. When the traffic in our Airbnbs was too much to handle I brought cleaning services in house. The last 2.5 years have been pivot after pivot in order to keep going.

One of the leases that we let go during early days of the Pandemic was a hair salon on a property I owned with my brother. The Salon owner called and said “It’s all too much, this is retirement!” And immediately I saw opportunity. I explored renovating the property to become an office, but ultimately the cost and time involved wasn’t worth it unless it became a completely new build. So, pivot. I remember sitting on my patio at home watching my newborn sleep, listening to the girls next door play outside in the summer, and designed a 4,000 square foot office building. Creating a special custom place for Boxwood to grow into. We currently occupy 1,200 square feet of the building, with plans to expand in 2023 to 2,000. We have three amazing neighbors in the building that we get to build valuable relationships with. Your next interviews need to be: Mallory Gregg of A Dose of Libra Studio, Trey & Micaela Rivera of Beyond Just You, and Pete Gibson of Pride and Glory Tattoo. They are some of the kindest, most creative, and smartest business owners I have had the pleasure of getting to know!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Honesty is my biggest fall back, I consider it a strong trait and part of my reputation. When I don’t know what to say, start with the truth. Speaking the truth keeps me in the moment, even if I’ve just realized a mistake was made months ago undetected, I’m making that phone call to correct it, right now. When a client asks advice, and I know it’s not what they want to hear, the truth could protect us both from making poor business decisions.

In those moments where the truth is hard, and I walk through it with someone, it builds up our valuable relationship. Wether or not this is the thing that sets me apart in this industry, I hope it’s something notable. If not my honesty, then the Positive Can-do attitude, I rarely say no to a new project unless it’s just absolutely not in the money or time budget. Based on realtime feedback and experience: I know I’m offering a good deal, when people don’t see the value, I remember: that’s not on me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bxwdllc.com
• Instagram: @bxwd.nashville
• Facebook: facebook.com/BoxwoodProperties
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/kristinhlaine
• Other: tiktok: @bxwd.nashville

Image Credits
All photos except the last one Christopher Wormald, https://christopherwphoto.com/ The last photo is our office building at 2818 Columbine Place taken last week by Pete Gibson of Pride and Glory Tattoo